Motorsports Mondial

Photo: f3euroseries

Pau novice Marciello dominates Grand Prix de Pau

After his victory last Saturday, Italian Raffaele Marciello (Prema Powerteam) also managed to win the main race on Sunday, the actual Grand Prix de Pau, and thus becomes the successor of German Marco Wittmann. At the 2.76 kilometres long street circuit of Pau in the south of France, the 17-year old Formula 3 Euro Series driver delivered a convincing performance and won with a margin of 13.129 seconds from Carlos Sainz (Carlin). Thus, two Euro Series drivers locked out the first two positions. Behind Jazeman Jaafar (Carlin), Daniel Juncadella (Prema Powerteam) took the chequered flag as the third-best driver from the ranks of the Formula 3 Euro Series.

Raffaele Marciello benefited from being on pole position and took the lead at the start. He immediately pulled clear from the rest of the field and at times was up to one second per lap faster than his rivals. On the challenging and tight track on the outskirts of the Pyrenees, Carlos Sainz followed Marciello in second place. Daniel Juncadella, who was classified two places behind his compatriot Sainz, kept Jaafar in front of him under pressure throughout the race, but the latter didn’t make a mistake and thus didn’t give the Spaniard an opportunity to attack.

Raffaele Marciello (Prema Powerteam): “It is great. My car was perfect, it was a great race and I really like the Pau circuit. Being on the winners’ list of Pau is fantastic, because it is one of the world’s most important Formula 3 races. After I had already built up a fairly good margin after five laps, I was relatively relaxed.”

Carlos Sainz (Carlin): “I reckon that the gap to Raffaele was a little bit too big. We were having some problems with the car, the balance just wasn’t right. But we will learn from it and do better next time. Apart from that, we should take the positive things from this race and build up on them.”

Daniel Juncadella (Prema Powerteam): “Although I was quicker than Jazeman Jaafar in front of me, I couldn’t find a way past him as he didn’t make any mistakes. Particularly after my retirement yesterday, I didn’t want to take too many risks either, but rather settle for the points.”